GREENSBORO, N.C. — In the wake of Hurricane Helene and with Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida, we called on chief meteorologist Tim Buckley to answer all your weather-related questions.
This is a transcript of some of the responses Buckley gave on WFMY News 2 on October 8. If you would like to see the full segment, you can watch it on our YouTube channel here.
Question: Is North Carolina going to be impacted by Milton?
Tim Buckley: The answer is no. I will say, if you're out at the beach ... you will have some rough surf. You'll have some erosion. At worst case, you might have a scattered shower.
Question: Why is it said that one side of a hurricane is stronger than the other side?
Buckley: It takes a little bit of understanding of what a hurricane is. If we look at where Tampa is for example, in Tampa Bay, it's near a big body of water. Hurricanes spin counterclockwise. If you live in the south or the east side, the water from the ocean is going to get pushed inland on that side. If you had to be in a hurricane at all, you would want to be on the north side. Why? There, the winds will be blowing from the land toward the ocean.
If the eye of Milton goes just south of Tampa, it's going to blow all the water out of Tampa Bay, but if it goes north, the water will be blown into Tampa Bay. The other bad thing about being on the south side: that's where most tornadoes occur and where you can see stronger winds. It's just the worst side to be on.
During Helene, North Carolina was on the right-hand side of the storm, so that's why we got tornadoes along with all the wind and flooding.
Question: Is it true hurricanes can't cross the equator?
Buckley: The answer is yes. They can't cross the equator. It is kind of like an invisible fence. If you look at a map of all the hurricanes that have happened, there's a big gap right by the equator. The reason has to do with why weather systems spin in the first place. When a hurricane forms, you have all this rising air, you have thunderstorms. The earth is always rotating underneath us, and you get a little bit of spinning motion.
In the southern hemisphere, hurricanes spin clockwise. The motion of the spinning always pushes them away from the equator. On record, we have not seen one cross the equator. Think of it like a big mountain they can't climb.
Question: What is the difference between a hurricane and a cyclone?
Buckley: It depends in which ocean it forms in. In the Atlantic and the eastern Pacific, we call them hurricanes. In the Indian Ocean, they call them cyclones, and in the western Pacific near Asia, they call them typhoons.
Question: Why don't hurricanes ever hit California?
Buckley: The main answer: The Pacific Ocean is too cold. Hurricanes want to have water that's 82 degrees or warmer.
Question: Why is Milton losing strength over the warm water in the Gulf of Mexico?
Buckley: Hurricanes can go through basically a renovation process. Sometimes it's almost like they're spinning out of control. The most intense storms can kind of erode themselves away and break themselves down to build themselves back up again. This is what we call an Eye Wall Replacement Cycle.
Milton just got too strong, and so it had to go through that sort of renovation. Sometimes you'll start with a small storm that is very densely packed and very intense, and then they'll grow a little bigger and the peak intensity is going to be a little less. As it approaches Florida, it might get bigger, but it should make landfall as a Category 3 storm.
Question: Will St. Augustine and Jacksonville be impacted by Milton?
Buckley: I think every part of Florida will be a little impacted. If you live in the east, you're going to get some rain and wind. It will probably be like a strong tropical storm or minor hurricane conditions. The west side is where things are going to be the worst.
The areas that are most in danger are Orlando, down to Tampa, down to Sarasota and Fort Myers. If my family were there, I would tell them to go away.
Question: Why are we into October and the color of the leaves hasn't changed yet?
Buckley: We're technically in the fall season, but when you look at the climatology of when the leaves change in our area, we are in the late October/early November range here in the Triad.
I do have bad news for you. Over the last couple of years and last couple of decades, that date where the leaves change is getting later and later. For our purposes, the mountains normally get started in early October, but not until late in the month or November for our area. I expect us to reach peak color here around Halloween.
Question: When are we going to see snow this year?
Buckley: If we're going to see it might be the better question. We almost always have some. The last two winters, we've had not a flake, and the last time that happened was 30 years ago in the early 90s. So we're in a rare spot right now. Not only have we not had a flake the past few years, but we haven't had a "big one" since 2018. If you're a snow lover, this is bad times.
I do think we will get some snow. It's just impossible to say here in October when or how it could happen. Usually, it's not as much as you want for a snow lover.
Question: Why were we able to see the Northern Lights in the south?
Buckley: The reason you can sometimes see them is because of the sun. When you see the northern lights or auroras, they happen because of the way the sun interacts with Earth's magnetic field. Sometimes the sun can spit out some energy (solar storm), it will interact with our magnetic field and it create some crazy effects. If the amount of energy is very large, sometimes you will see it in the south. But it's not very common. Right now we are in the middle of an active solar season. We'll probably go away from it in a year or two.
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